It was my 24th birthday on Wednesday so I went out for a night of fun with my family. we had a great dinner and then went shopping. The above photo shows my Hobby Lobby Haul. I had never been there before because my go to store was always AC Moore but Hobby Lobby is pretty impressive haha. I am totally obsessed with polymer clay charms so of course I had to get some more Sculpey and Premo clay. I also got more eyes pins, and some glass jars to make some more unique charms. I will have more photos of my charms soon.

*****UPDATE: My favorite local health food store actually has agreed to let me use some of their counter space to sell some of my charms. All of the profits are actually going to buying supplies for my wellness website and for my dance website. So I hope they do well.*****

My Flight001 order came the day after my birthday and I was so excited. I purchased a luggage tag, leather passport cover, collapsible cup, collapsible chopsticks, Luxe guide to Seoul SK, and an awesome wetsuit bag set. As I said in my previous post I love travel and hope to one day have the income to be able to experience the world and the people in it. I know I will have my chance soon and my first order from Flight001 gives me great hope.

*****Do you have a place you would love to go to in the world? Please share! :)*****

Hey everyone nice to speak to you all once again. I’m working hard developing recipes for my wellness website that I am building. The current recipes are staring alternative flours such as chickpea and soy. Some recipes have come out better than others but hey we’re in the experimentation phase so it’s all good haha. My 24th birthday is coming up on the 10th and I will be celebrating another birthday on SPB and I am really happy about that. When I started this blog is was more about having something to do but then I really began to enjoy creating posts and meeting other WordPress bloggers. Salt Pepper Brilliant has really changed my life for the better and I can’t wait to finally introduce my website to you all.

For my birthday I received an early gift, a gift card for $100 to the travel extravaganza Flight001. For a travel lover like me you can imagine I placed my order pretty much immediately. When I have a little bit of time to myself I read travel books, scan Flight001 for new and exciting travel products, ooh and aah over my most prized possession (below), and sometimes even scan travel sites for rates to my favorite places on earth. The sad thing is though is that financially I have no way of traveling anywhere anytime soon. However, I am optimistic; and know that I will breathe the air, taste the food, and experience the culture and people of my favorite places. Just the prospect of a future of travel makes my stomach flutter with delight.

So for me to have my first package from Flight001 on its way to my home is so exciting for me. They have fantastic travel gadgets, luggage and luggage tags, bags, in flight necessities and so much more. I will post my Flight001 haul when my package arrives so we all will have to be patient 😉 . Below are some of the cool things Flight001 has in store for the modern traveler:

I will tell you this right now this is going to be a deep one. I have a lot on my plate and am feeling kind of overwhelmed. How many times have I been in this spot? Worrying about money. Worrying about finding a job. Worrying about how I will pay off my student loans. I don’t know when and I don’t know how but I have to believe I will get through this. Because if I don’t no one else will. How many times will I throw myself into a project in hopes for success and fail? I am currently working on my Wellness website and a dance production company/website and honestly I’m afraid. I love these projects. I am these projects. I don’t want to see these two collapse like others have in the past. I don’t know if they will but I have to believe that I will succeed. These are just feelings put into words that I felt I had to get out. I have a tendency to hold things in so that my feelings won’t get in the way of my work. Then that one day comes when I completely explode and of course that is no way to live. I thank all of you again who support Salt Pepper Brilliant and by extension support me. It means more to me than you know in these stressful times. All of my love—-Christina

To all of Salt Pepper Brilliant’s followers and new comers alike thank you for all of your support. I am going to be posting on occasion but definitely not as often as when I began, reason being is that I am working on a new project. I am working on a wellness website that I am hoping to launch by the end of this year. It will essentially be Salt Pepper Brilliant times 10 with photos, videos, and so much more interactive things. Like I said for SPB I want to create a space of simple beauty. A place to learn new things while appreciating the daily things we take for granted. What can you expect from this website you say? Skincare-Cooking-Fitness-Natural Beauty and Living-Weekly Challenges-Pixie Adventures-DIY and so much more. I hope that when the time comes you will all take the chance to look and experience this site that I am pouring my heart and soul into. Once again thank you for your support and I can’t wait to share this website with you—-Christina

Finally here is a simple delicious recipe using some of my farmers market haul. I have been eating this same delicious breakfast since Saturday and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. The reason I call this recipe just an egg breakfast is because it can be either scramble eggs or an omelet. I hope you enjoy this breakfast as much as I do 🙂 —-CMY

Farmers Market Egg Breakfast

Serves 1

1 whole egg

2 egg whites

1/4 to 1/2 of a baby zucchini thinly slice

1 bunch onion chopped

As much cheese as you like

Toast to serve with

Take your chopped veggies and add them to a pan on medium heat with a little olive oil salt and pepper. Cook your veg tossing occasionally till tender. Add your egg and your cheese and scramble (or an omelet and frittata). Serve nice and hot with a piece of toast. Enjoy!

*****I have a post planned on the sun and sunscreen and what people need to know. Most people say stay out of the sun it is bad for you in excess. Well why is that? In my next post I will tell you. I don’t fear the sun in fact I love it; but being educated about its effects on the body is very important.*****

So I went to the farmer’s market today with my sister and we had a blast. Unfortunately we showed up towards the end of it and a lot of the good stuff was gone but I am pleased with what we got anyway. Now it is time to get some inspiration for a delicious healthy meal with my new local produce. Yum! This summer I plan to really drive to all the places that I have wanted to go to for a while now. My biggest place is Lancaster PA. I just love the area so much. My father and I used to take weekend drives out there when I was in high school and I haven’t been there since. So when I go I want to hit the Lancaster Central Market and Kitchen Kettle Village. Have any of you been to Lancaster? Do you live in Lancaster? Any place I should definitely visit? Any help would be much appreciated 🙂 —-CMY

So now I love learning new things. Especially creative crafty artsy things (phew!). For the past 2 months or so I have been experimenting with polymer clay and let me tell you it is addicting. On YouTube I follow several polymer clay masters and all the ideas I have are always swirling through my head. I am currently creating lots of pendants. I like the size of them and the fact that they are statement pieces. Here are a few that I have worked on so far. Hope you like them!—-CMY

Have any of you experimented with polymer clay? What crafts do you like?

Now I have promised my family for a while that I would make them some sushi so when they showed up with all the ingredients I knew it was on. We enjoyed steamed edamame with sea salt, sake chicken, tempura shrimp, and some from scratch tempura shrimp and chicken rolls with scallions and my special sesame sauce. Here is our delicious dinner 🙂 —-CMY

What a night! After taking my sister to an interview and stuffing ourselves with copious amounts of delicious Italian delights I decided that we should go to the movies. There was only one movie I had in mind…The Great Gatsby. Now I hadn’t been to the movies in a long time. To be honest I was fed up with hollywood and its recycling of actors and unoriginal tasteless films. However there was something different about this film so I decided I’m out and about so let us see how this will pan out. (Rhyming unintentional :))

So we arrive at the theater for the 9:45pm showing and to my delight the theater was pretty much empty. We sit there with the smell of popcorn and the fizzy sounds of soda as the previews spring to life on the screen. I sit there in anticipation and hope that my money will be well spent. The lights suddenly dim and the theater is dark. The screen is now glowing with golden designs and soft music fills my ears. For the next 150 minutes I am taken on a roller coaster ride of love, lust, obsession betrayal, finally tragedy.

The Great Gatsby: A Break Down

Now this isn’t going to be too much of a story breakdown because I don’t want to give too much away but I will do my best to convey to you what I had experienced.

Visual Styling/Wardrobe: The Great Gatsby was a visual masterpiece. Every frame was nothing but beautiful eye candy of every color and shade. Light scenes or dark it was so stunning in its styling I didn’t want to blink fearing I would miss something. The costumes from the normal everyday outfit to those worn to J. Gatsby’s extravagant weekend parties were absolutely stunning. The styling of the atmosphere from actual sets to those scenes aided by computer graphics were also completely beautiful. From start to finish you are drawn in and immersed into a world of excess and fantasy that actually helped you along in the story line. After all this was the time of excess, whether it was from drinking, money flaunting, or too much pleasure of the flesh. 5 STAR RATING *****

Sound Track: For me the sound track for a film is super super important. I can not stress this enough. It sets the tone for every scene conveying and amplifying the emotion of the actors. For a lot of the film the music was actually modern hip hop music heavy on the rap stylings of Jay-Z. Now I like hip hop, but this for me is when the movie tanked. I had a hard time connecting to the film because the music was distracting and for me did not in any way fit the film. It felt as if what I was seeing on screen and what was playing along with it were battling one another (all I could think of at those times was hot mess…yikes!). As a side note I felt the film that did the modern music sound track well was actually Marie Antoinette with Kirsten Dunst even though the story line was lacking. There was only one scene in the entire Gatsby film where I enjoyed this different soundtrack approach. The most famous of the sound track songs “Young and Beautiful” by Lana Del Rey actually saved this film for me musical wise. I absolutely adore this song and Lana’s unique voice. I enjoyed the fact that this song made its appearance several times in the film but in many different presentations. It was presented in an era appropriate way at a faster pace during a Gatsby party, then in its original form, and then in another scene it was no more than a whisper. I honestly couldn’t help singing this song when it played. But don’t worry I was pretty quiet as not to disturb the other movie goers. Please enjoy the song below. 3 STAR RATING ***

The Acting Performances: Now me actually having acting experience I am always looking for that “It” performance. When I saw that this film starred Mr. Leonardo DiCaprio I was a bit skeptical. I have followed his career since he was young and I was never really impressed with his performances. I always thought though that he was often holding back (not hating on Leo at all by the way). I look for a complete loss of self and I feel that Leo exceeded my expectation as the Great J.Gatsby. He was strong yet vulnerable, mild-mannered then a flurry of emotions. He made me feel his pain. He truly was this movie and not just because he was the title character on paper. The rest of the troubled cast performed exceptionally well also. They were rich, wild, naive and I hated them and loved them all in one breath. 5 STAR RATING *****

The Story Line: Let’s make this simple and sweet, shall we? J. Gatsby is a mysterious rich man living on the bay in Long Island NY in a huge mansion. Every weekend the people of New York city show up uninvited to the Gatsby estate for a roaring party that Gatsby hosts in order to get the attention of none other than a lost love named Daisy (Carry Mulligan) who lives across the bay with her super wealthy cheating husband. Gatsby and Daisy were in love before Gatsby was sent off to war and since Gatsby’s return home was delayed Daisy married her now husband. The narrator of this story is Nick Caraway (Toby Maguire). Who happens to be Daisy’s cousin and who also happens to live right next to Gatsby’s towering home. Nick sets up a meeting of the two long-lost lovers at Gatsby’s request and this is when the true story begins and then begins to unravel. Rendezvous of love that turns into lust and obsession. The hopes and dreams that get shattered lead to lives that will forever be changed. By the end you will realize whose love and loyalty ran the deepest and you will witness the true betrayal of the whole film. All in all this movie was excellent but it was definitely depressing . I would rank it along the lines of Moulin Rouge and Atonement in its suffering. I will award this film only four stars for the story line because I will most likely never watch it again. One hundred and fifty minutes of such sadness is too much to do over again. But I’m glad I did it once. 4 STAR RATING ****

OVERALL RATING OF 4.25 STARS

I hope you enjoyed my first movie interview! Thank you all so much for supporting Salt Pepper Brilliant <33333333333333

***************I do not own any of the music, videos, stills, photography in this post.******************